Tony Blair: England’s riots weren’t sign of moral decline

Tony Blair believes the riots that hit cities across England were not a sign of a general ‘moral decline’ in society.

Tony Blair has been discussing the recent riots (Picture: PA)

He claimed the violence and looting was a symptom of a very specific problem and warned David Cameron and Ed Miliband that their thinking on the issue was muddled.

The current prime minister has blamed the disorder on a ‘broken society’ and vowed to take steps to halt the ‘slow-motion moral collapse’, while the Labour leader said the trouble showed the UK was a ‘country in need of deep-rooted change’.

Mr Blair, however, believes both have misjudged the situation and suggested there was a very real danger of the wrong problems being identified and unnecessary action being taken.

In an article for the Observer, the former prime minister wrote: ‘The big cause is the group of alienated, disaffected youth who are outside the social mainstream and who live in a culture at odds with any canons of proper behaviour.

‘And here’s where I simply don’t agree with much of the commentary. In my experience they are an absolutely specific problem that requires a deeply specific solution.

‘The left says they’re victims of social deprivation, the right says they need to take personal responsibility for their actions; both just miss the point.’

Mr Blair added that the phenomenon of families that are ‘profoundly dysfunctional, operating on completely different terms from the rest of society’ is a problem faced by all developed nations, but not one that can be solved using traditional policies or investment programmes.